Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yigal Levin <Yigal.Levin AT biu.ac.il>]

Hi Karl,

 

There are no textual variants that I know of. As Ken has already noted, we don't have the DSS for Judges 1.

 

I doubt that there was more than one Jerusalem. Unlike Bethlehem, Rehob, Hazor, Ramah, Geba etc., all of which have very clear literal meanings (even if we have no idea just why a particular name was given to a particular place), "Jerusalem" is a rather strange name, so I doubt that there would have been more than one.

 

It is possible that Judges originally read something else, which was changed to Jerusalem at some early point, either through a copyist's error or on purpose (maybe to emphasize that Jerusalem "belonged" to Judah by right of conquest, even though it was in Benjamin's allotment?). But since there is no evidence for this, I think that we should take the passage at face value.

 

Now, how to explain the obvious contradiction between Judges 1:8 on one side and 1:21 with the rest of the biblical story on the other? I see two options. One is to assume that verses 8 and 21 came from two different sources that reflect two different traditions or memories of what happened to Jerusalem, which were both copied into Judges 1 by an editor who didn't see a need to address the contradiction. The other is to adopt a "harmonizing" story, such as: after Adoni-zedek, the Amorite king of Jerusalem, was defeated and killed by Joshua (Josh. 10; Josh. 12:10) without Joshua actually taking the city, the city was weakened enough so that the tribe of Judah could capture it after Joshua's death (Judges 1:8). However, they did not settle in the city, so at some point the Jebusites came and settled there, managed to deflect a Benjamite attack (Judges 1:21) and remained in control of the city until the reign of David. Your choice.

 

Yigal Levin

 

 

 

From: b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of K Randolph
Sent: Wednesday, September 18, 2013 10:15 AM
To: B-Hebrew
Subject: [b-hebrew] Judges 1:8 Jerusalem

 

Dear B-Hebrew friends:

 

In Judges 1:8 it’s written that Judah fought against Jerusalem and took it, burning it with fire. I think this is a copyist error because:

 

Judges 1:3 Judah was fighting within its inheritance, and that of Simeon, and Jerusalem was in the inheritance of Benjamin.

 

Judges 1:21 Benjamin didn’t capture Jerusalem, not until King David was Jerusalem captured.

 

Possible answers:

 

There was more than one city named Jerusalem. After all, there were two if not three cities named Bethlehem, and at least three cities named Qadesh, so can we rule out a second city named Jerusalem? I think this answer is unlikely but I can’t rule it out.

 

What evidence is there from textual variants and DSS?

 

LXX has Jerusalem.

 

Karl W. Randolph.